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The health care reform process has been brutal.
For months I’ve joined activists and volunteers who have been working to make sure women are not left with less reproductive health care coverage after health care reform that we currently have.
For months I’ve watched anti-choice language work its way into the House version of the health care reform bill and then the Nelson compromise insert the likelihood of regional disparities in coverage and funding bans into the Senate version of the bill.
Then there was that Senate election last week in Massachusetts that threw health care reform into chaos.
Yeah, it’s been brutal as hell…but they call this shit a struggle for a reason.
I spent last week fighting a serious case of the legislative blahs, but today I’m refueling on the empowerment I find in the justice behind reproductive justice work.
I don’t just believe that all of us should have coverage for and access to the full range of reproductive health care services.
I know that all of us have the right to have coverage for and access to the full range of reproductive health care services.

Knowing that one true thing…that there is justice at the root of this movement and that the pursuit of justice through this movement is crucial to our success…knowing that truth is the foundation on which everything else is built.
And it is empowering…it’s like super food for the activist soul.
All of us have the right to have coverage for and access to the full range of reproductive health care services.
Not just rich people…or folks who happen to live in a certain state…or those who are able to gather up funds from supportive family and friends…or people with health care coverage through one of those big companies that gives real coverage to all employees even if they happen to work in one of the branch offices located in an unfortunate anti-choice state.All of us…and that means transgender people, lesbian and bi-sexual and gay and queer people…people of color…disabled people…people who are blessed with multiple identities (wink)…women who are serving in the military and the women who have served…undocumented people…incarcerated people…sex workers and all the other people I failed to mention.
All of us.
Justice demands it.
All of us.
No legislation or reform can or will deny the truth of that.
All of us.
And when I think of the power of that truth I get so fired up that I want to shoot my fist up in the air and say it loud…
Health care is a right…it’s her right and his right and their right and my right.
A right, damn it!
For all of us.
We may not be able to predict the future of the current health care reform legislation…
…but I can guarantee that this struggle shall continue.
Because I know that justice demands it and no legislation or reform can deny the truth of that.
Pause…consider…continue.
So, the legislative process will just have to catch the hell up.
Blink.

When trying to get an abortion, as in so many things, it’s very expensive to be poor. Using the example of two archetypal women in Wisconsin — one low-income and one middle-income — ThinkProgress calculated the true cost of accessing the procedure.

Wisconsin — like 18 other states — has less than five abortion clinics and — like 10 other states — requires two trips to the clinic to get an abortion. All told, ThinkProgress estimates that “the process of obtaining an abortion could total up to $1,380 for a low-income single mother saddled with charges related to gas, a hotel stay, childcare, and taking time off work. For a middle-income woman living comfortably in a city with no children and public transit options to the ...

When trying to get an abortion, as in so many things, it’s very expensive to be poor. Using the example of two archetypal women in Wisconsin — one low-income and one middle-income — ThinkProgress calculated the true ...

In 2009, New York banned the shackling of pregnant inmates during labor. But, according to a new report from the Correctional Association of New York’s Women in Prison Project, prisons in the state haven’t stopped the degrading and dangerous practice.

ThinkProgress reports: “After surveying nearly 950 incarcerated women, researchers found that, among the 27 participants who gave birth after the shackling ban was passed, 23 of them were still restrained at some point during their labor or delivery. They described their experiences as ‘painful,’ ‘horrible,’ and ‘degrading.'”

Shacking during labor is opposed by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, has been called “barbaric” by the American Medical Association, and was banned by the Federal Bureau of ...

In 2009, New York banned the shackling of pregnant inmates during labor. But, according to a new report from the Correctional Association of New York’s Women in Prison Project, prisons in the state haven’t stopped the degrading ...